Secondary Pseudepigraphy: Claimed Apostolically-Connected Authors and the Reception of Early Christian Literature

Objective

The CLAIM Project studies the late antique and medieval practice of assigning an apostolic connection to a series of writings composed under the name of early Christian characters like Dionysius the Areopagite, Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and others, thought to have met central apostolic figures like Paul, Peter, or John. Unlike similar apocryphal works (attributed to the apostles themselves and implicitly claiming their direct authority), this broadly transmitted literature draws on a mediated type of authority and offering its own brand of derived access to idealised early Christian pasts. Aiming to offer a new approach to the history of Christian literature in late antiquity and middle ages and challenging the received idea that late antique and medieval Christians in idealised pasts turned to the apostles only (from the New Testament or apocryphal accounts), the CLAIM Project will explore the reception-historical dynamics of this type of secondary pseudepigraphy around the Mediterranean space, in five key late antique and medieval manuscript cultures: Greek, Coptic, Latin, Syriac, and Armenian. This investigation breaks new ground by challenging the received categories for late antique Christian literature currently in use in modern scholarship (including gender-based ones), and by integrating comparative manuscript studies with cultural history.